The Center for Arts and Entertainment Technologies The College of Fine Arts Course Abstracts and Instructors (2015/16) AET 30x Gender and Technology :: Power and Art Instructor: Megan Winget, Ph.D. In this course, we’ll explore what it means to work collaboratively in building a more sustainable and equitable society for all people. Students in this course will learn to acknowledge their context, privileges and disadvantages, and the different ways they have of knowing the world. Radical Engagement: In this course, learning and teaching will be generative, fluid processes. Much of the hard work of this course will be outside the classroom: reading, thinking, organizing and providing situated context for our ideas so our class colleagues can come to a fuller, richer understanding of our own shared and individual experiences. The students and instructor will come together to discover and explore the ideas shaped by the readings, and build emergent systems that provide deeper understanding of our own boundaries and possibilities. AET 304 Foundations of Art and Entertainment Technologies Instructor: Jack Stamps, DMA This course presents a broad overview of digital media technologies, software and applications along with the fundamental concepts of digital representations of images and signals. Students will study an assortment of entertainment concepts or experiences, discover the underlying technology involved and learn how this technology is delivered to the participant. For example: What is the relationship between circuit-­‐bending and DIY electronics? How does IMAX work? How do robotic lights move? How can a dancer¹s body movements affect the music that accompanies the dance? What goes on behind the scenes of a large-­‐
scale live musical performance? How are 3D printers changing art, manufacturing, and medicine? In pursuit of answers to such questions students will also consider the cultural, philosophical, ethical and practical aspects of entertainment technology. AET 305 Foundations of Music Technology Instructor: Jack Stamps, DMA This course is a lecture/lab course designed to introduce students to the concepts and current trends of music technology. The primary focus is the combining of various processes and tools to create new music compositions while speculating on the cultural, performance, and philosophical implications of music technology. Topics include the acoustics of sound, historical landmarks of music technology, digital audio, synthesis, sampling, MIDI (in performance and 1 editing), the digital audio workstation, digital audio hardware, digital audio software and current movements in the digital dissemination of music. AET 306 Foundations of Digital Imaging and Visualization Instructor: Neal Daugherty, MFA By utilizing contemporary computer graphic software, digital capture and imaging devices, and a digital vocabulary of the conceptual use of technology within art and entertainment, this course’s objective is to enable the student to make educated technological and conceptual decisions on how to explore and best utilize digital technology within their own technical and aesthetic development. Students will explore this course’s context by primarily using tools such as the Macintosh computer system, Adobe Creative Cloud, DSLRs, scanners, printing, and of course...the internet. Exploration of digital production methods will include input and output of both 2D/3D static and temporal file formats, digital capture and delivery, video editing and animation, file format optimization and compression, and digital printing and presentation. Concepts of practical methodology in both software and hardware usage including media storage, content delivery, and social media trends will also be examined. AET 317 Foundations of Interactive Software (Fall 2016) Instructor: TBD This class will explore concepts, methods and systems used in a variety of interactive settings. It will start with principals of interactive GUI design and implementation including client-­‐side and client-­‐server forms. Then the class will examine how to create interactive operations in game programs such as Unity3D. The latter part of the semester will examine techniques and protocols used for live performance -­‐ body and movement tracking, sound signal and pitch tracking, object position recognition, GPS and other positional tracking systems – all with an emphasis on how the digital information can be acquired and utilized in interactive and real-­‐time software applications. AET 318 Foundations of Games and Playable Applications (Fall 2016) Instructor: Paul Toprac, Ph.D. This course introduces students to the process and products of game development. The course examines the creative and production aspects of game development, and the interplay between them, including historical perspectives, content creation tools and techniques, gameplay design, production planning and execution, marketing and maintenance, and future possible directions. Students analyze games, ideate new game designs, and create and present their own game proposal, which includes the elements of scheduling, resourcing, and budgeting for green-­‐lighting. Students collaborate in groups using game development tools to create proof-­‐of-­‐concept demos. AET 323 Creating Music and Sound for Film, Video and Games 2 Instructor: Jack Stamps, DMA Creating Music and Sound for Film, Video and Games is a lecture/lab course designed to introduce students to concepts of music and sound for a variety of media with a primary focus on creating original music and/or sound tracks. Topics include music structures, production and editing, film and video synchronization, game audio and other sound for film related topics. By the end of this course, students will: Learn to use the digital audio workstation to create music and sound deign for film; Use higher procedures such as MIDI, sampling and synthesis to full effect for the assignments given; Discern between types of musical score appropriate for different visual narratives; Discern between types of sound design appropriate for different visual narratives; Rationalize musical and sound design choices as they relate to your aesthetic preferences; Migrate to any number of similar DAW setups to continue similar work beyond the class AET 325 Digital Production Art – 2D Instructor: Neal Daugherty, MFA This course is designed to provide basic animation foundations and targeted instruction for artists wanting to expand their research into advanced or specific types of 2D digital art techniques and processes. It is an introductory to intermediate course offering before entering into more advanced 2d digital art production. Utilizing the student’s existing digital and traditional skill sets, the course will examine the technical and conceptual aspects of 2D animation with pen and pencil drawings, video/film documentation and presentation. It will include topics in Photoshop, Painter, Audition and After Effects for animation, sound editing and scripting of storyboards. Students will develop an understanding of digital production processes and a learned vocabulary of animation and its respective nomenclatures. The assigned problems and project modules will let the students creatively consider the interaction of the various media types: imagery, composition, and digital manipulation methods. AET 326 Digital Art Production – 3D Instructor: Dax Norman, MFA This course teaches students to manifest ideas from thought to tangible reality in a digital space. This course empowers students to create anything that they can possibly think of, through projects focused on the creation of animated 3-­‐D characters and objects, to virtual game environments. In the commercial space of 3-­‐D digital art, one will be able to try on all aspects of the production pipeline to see which best suits them. By the end of this course, students will: Understand the similarities and differences between producing animation for a 3-­‐D game versus film; Conceptualize characters and environments in both form and function; Create character and environment designs in the form of 3-­‐D digital models; Comprehend the process of rigging, or character setup; Explore texture through multiple approaches to surfacing digital models; Apply 3-­‐D character animation for use in both rendered video as well as real time game 3 environments; Evaluate the relationship between art history and its relationship to the current state of 3-­‐D digital art AET 335 Game Aesthetics Instructor: Paul Toprac, Ph.D. This course is designed to introduce students to the design and aesthetics of games. Our discussions, assignments, and other course activities follow three main threads: (1) what is the meaning of playing games, and (2) the aesthetics of play and games, and (3) the role of game design as both the creation of designed artifacts and sociocultural texts, such as the role of play/games in human culture, the ethics of games, and rhetoric as they relate to gaming. Students will develop an appreciation of the role that games has played and continue to play in society as a whole, as well as in people’s lives. Student activities include playing and analyzing games, reading articles on game aesthetics and design, and creating a tabletop game to further deepen understanding. AET 336 Game History and Critical Theory Instructor: Rachel Wiel, MFA Just as a good novelist benefits from reading widely, and as a painter benefits from a deep knowledge of art history, so too does a game developer benefit from a rich and critical understanding of theory and the history of video games. This course aims to provide a foundation for thinking critically about where games have been and why games matter from a variety of industrial, technical, artistic, and social perspectives. This course will introduce you to critical and historiological approaches to video games. Some specific goals include: recognizing historical moments in and relationships between the development of arcade games and amusement machines, console and handheld gaming, computer and online games, and mobile games; demonstrating the value and limitations of video game histories and archives; reading and analyzing popular and scholarly texts relating to critical media theory and practice in video games, and applying your knowledge of critical theory to written works, classroom discussion, and a game design project. AET 339/INF350 Principals of Interaction Design Instructor: Ramona Broussard, Ph.D. candidate, INF Interaction design focuses on experiences with the objects of design. An interaction designer asks about viewer’s experience of an interface. Information interaction is all around us: on websites, in libraries, on mobile phones, and nearly countless others. A game is an example of a particularly rich interactive object. For example, a game incorporates more than just principles of play. Games include elements of information structures such as interface design (what are the controls, how does it look?), instructional design (how does the player know what to do?), and information architecture (what are the rules, or the 4 mechanics?). This class is an introduction to principles from interaction design that inform such elements. AET367 The Entrepreneurial Artist Instructor: Jim Kerkhoff, MM. (Asst. Dean IT, COFA) Mobile and cloud technologies represent a great opportunity for the modern artist. They inspire entrepreneurial activity and social change not seen since the introduction of the Gutenberg printing press in the 15th century. These influences have inspired the creation of a new course for the College of Fine Arts, The Entrepreneurial Artist. The Entrepreneurial Artist will explore the new creatives’ landscape. It is an Art and Entertainment Technologies upper division course, and strikes a balance that serves all creatives, no matter what their home discipline. The course will include: How the arts are transformed by new technologies, network effects and social media. A historical perspective of major technology milestones that transformed industries. Business case studies of online artists. Students who complete the course will be able to: Use low-­‐cost media production tools to create and promote artistic work; Develop practical strategies for leveraging the Web to self-­‐publish; Create a business model ; Create and monitor an online presence; Reach an audience to sustain a venture and create profit. MUS319D – Foundations of Digital Sound and Music (funded by AET) Instructor: Jon Fielder, DMA Candidate Students enrolled in MUS 319D will focus on learning the basic concepts behind digital audio and recording. The course will cover “nuts and bolts” material for doing your own recording, editing, sequencing and mixing using various forms of software programs and recording/editing techniques. The primary objective of this course is to provide functional understanding of digital audio systems and recording techniques that you can utilize in various fields including, but not limited to, audio production, film scoring, game music and sound design. NOTE – this course is a functional equivalent of AET305 primarily for BM and BA Music students. It is taught by an EMS AI under the supervision of Prof. Russell Pinkston, BSOM. 5